As I cry into my hands, he slams on the gas and heads toward the woods.
“Where are you going?” I ask, head still dizzy, eyes yet to adjust, and body shaking in now silent sobs.
“Apparently, to take you to my place until Patrick can get to you and rid me of the burden!”
“I hate you.” I sniff.
When he doesn’t respond, I turn toward him. “Did you hear me?”
He doesn’t say anything, and so I say it again, and again, and again.
Chapter Twenty Two
Tobias
My fucking nerves are shot, my hands shaking, my chest aching, as I listen to her still, in her sleep, whispering, hate you, as she continues to sniff and shake with near silent sobs.
I hope she continues to say it a million times over so that the cold, cruel words extinguish the soul-scorching, drunken word vomit that is still burning into what I fear will forever haunt me.
I love them way more than you.
All week, as most every teenager in the United States does, I wished away five days to get to the weekend. A first for me. I never liked being alone, never loved being surrounded by people, but that was before I saw five-foot-nothing of a little spitfire back in November.
When the little red BMW rolled up in front of Frank’s shop to buy one of the rings that I needed to sell to pay some bills, I expected to see the type of girl that I see at school. A girl dressed in designer labels that cost more than most people make in a week. But she wasn’t. She was in workout clothes, wearing sneakers, and the laces weren’t even tied. She was cute as fuck. When she came in and didn’t just drop a black card and lift her nose in the air, and not only haggled over prices but knew she would likely be taken for a ride, I knew she valued a dollar. She piqued my interest immediately.
My balls didn’t burn, my dick didn’t stand at attention immediately. It wasn’t a need for a release, or an excuse to have a warm body in my bed for a couple hours just so I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t because I wanted to see if she was really all I thought she may be. I just fucking knew finally something good was coming.
The events that unfolded afterward fucked all that in the ass—no lube.
Finally at home, I park in the garage attached to the back of the house and pace back and forth, not wanting to wake her, because I don’t know what I would do or say to her. I’m fucking angry that she kissed him, angry that I reacted to it by breaking a promise. Angry, so fucking angry, that I couldn’t keep my emotions in check, possibly the only time that it mattered.
That loss of control from someone like me—a kid who has kept it together for so fucking long, since she died, since before her funeral—it truly feels like this is killing me.
I scrub my hand over my face and remind myself, Less than three months.
I finally dare a glance at her and see she’s looking at everything around the garage.
“Fuck,” I mumble as I walk over and open the door.
Angry that she has seen what she has, knowing it makes me look like a crazy fucking hoarder, I snap, “Let’s go.”
“I can just stay here,” she says then sniffs.
“I don’t want you in here,” I snap.
Her hand shakes as she tries to unlatch her seat belt.
“Move,” I say, trying not to sound like an asshole but knowing it’s necessary to keep her saying she hates me as I unlatch her belt.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, fucking it all in the ass.
“Don’t be sorry. Keep telling me you hate me. I fucking love it.”
“I’m not sorry about that.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
“That’s none of your business.”
She pushes me then slides out of the truck, swaying as she walks in the wrong direction.
I grab her elbow. “It’s this way.”
I open the door, and the cool ocean air blows against my face. I feel goose bumps spread across her skin.
She steps out, and then I shut the door behind her and lock it with my key.
“Come on,” I say as I walk around the house to the front porch, unlock the door, and open it.
“If he gets arrested, my parents are gonna find out, and I’m gonna get grounded.”
An angry laugh escapes me, as do words I should have kept inside. “I hope you do. It’ll make it harder for you and Reeves to fuck around.”
I look behind me to see she’s fucking pissed. Good. So am I, sweetheart, so am I.
“Maybe I’ll make it easier on myself and move out when I’m eighteen, find myself an old ass yoga teacher with the body of a twelve-year-old”—she shakes with another silent sob and wipes her sleeve under her nose—“with plastic doorknobs to fuck when I’m feeling like I need to get laid.”
“You do that, and I’ll punch him in the fucking head, too.”
She balls her hands into fists, and I see her getting ready to go off like a tiny toddler. “I—”
I scoop her ass up and kick the door shut behind me.
“Say it now!” I yell as I storm toward my room and toss her onto the bed.
One pillow at a time flies at me as she screams, “I. Hate. You!”
She starts to get up.
“You stay right there, don’t fucking move, and go to sleep until someone comes to get you the fuck out of here.”
She doesn’t listen, and I have no idea why that surprises me at all.
“I’m not staying in here where you fuck old ladies. I’m going to the couch!”
“Gonna have to be honest here and tell you there isn’t a surface here I haven’t fucked on, so good luck, sweetheart.”
I’m a fucking dick, and I deserve whatever she says, throws, or does next.
“I’m gonna rent this place and spread my legs for every guy who isn’t too much of a pussy to admit he wants me!”
“You think I’m a pussy because I haven’t said I wanna fuck you?” I laugh.
“If the old lady twat fits,” she sneers, “wear it.”
“She’s twenty-nine!” I yell at her.
“Oh, yeah? And how long has she been that age? Ten fucking years!”
“Jesus Christ, Truth.” I turn to hide the fact that I’m losing my shit so badly that I’m about to laugh. “Just go to sleep.”
I hear covers rumple and turn to see her tear them off, or at least attempt to. She’s so fucking wasted.
She turns around, scowling at me, and my fucking chest tightens at the thought that, someday, I’ll have a little one who looks at me like that when I tell her it’s time for bed.
“Are you just gonna stand there, or are you gonna help me?” She sniffs, bottom lip now pouting fully out.
“You really think you deserve my help?”
With both hands, she covers her face, her shoulders slouched, and she sobs out quietly, “I’m so tired.” Then she walks to the corner, takes her hoodie off, revealing a tight as hell tank top, and curls up in the corner, using the hoodie as a pillow.
“Fine. Fucking fine.”
“And flip that stupid mattress, too,” she tells me.
“I’m gonna beat your ass,” I whisper to myself.